December 23, 2008

Part 5: Is Technology Marketing For You?

Q: Do sales and marketing really clash or butt heads?

A: Yes, most of the time. Even when sales and marketing is one organization, there is plenty friction. Anyone who tells you otherwise is not telling you the truth. Is it ever avoidable? Yes, absolutely. Having a shared goal helps but it won’t ever completely eliminate the friction. Knowing that friction exists is not enough. It’s pretty important to understand why the friction exists. Then, you will understand that the problem can be avoided by making sure that two people are not in the same seat at the same place at the wrong time.

Think about a senior in high school who wants to become a doctor. He needs to figure out what kind of specialty he’s interested in. He needs to think about medical school, SAT/ACTs, MCATs, grade point average, extra curricular activities, how to pay for tuition, undergraduate major, student loans, and so on. He also needs to worry about getting an ‘A’ on the history final exam this Thursday. Marketing is the former and sales the latter. Sales looks at marketing and wonders, “none of what you’re doing matters if I don’t do well on Thursday’s exam.” Marketing looks at sales and says, “no matter how well you do on that single exam, if we do not plan properly and know exactly what must be done overall … we can kiss medical school and being a doctor goodbye.”

Can you see the problem? At startups, this situation gets worse because oftentimes there is no certainty that medical schools exist or, worse, the medical profession in its entirety may not exist. So, naturally, sales gets very skeptical toward marketing. The only evidence that exists is sales’ ability to sell. Tomorrow’s exam is the only thing that matters to them. Likewise, marketing gets frustrated with sales. Instead of learning a thing or two about biology, sales keeps enrolling in art or cooking classes and kicks and screams about making sure everybody contributes to getting an ‘A’ in those classes. Even worse, upon scoring well on those exams, sales demands that we need to become an artist or chef.

At a startup, real sales DOES NOT begin until the student graduates from medical school, finishes his internship, and completes his residency. Now, real sales as we know it begins. The M.D. sets up a private practice and starts taking care of patients. In so doing, he starts making money in exchange for helping customers. All of the steps until this point (i.e., becoming a practicing physician) is MARKETING. The CEO is your chief sales officer. The marketing or product management head is also a sales guy. The emphasis is placed on learning and understanding. Later on, you hire a professional sales staff to go out and sell. Don’t flip flop the two! I’ve recently seen it flip flopped in two places and both are doomed to fail – one actually already failed.